Image Details

Oil lamps. Although their rims are partially broken, these lamps clearly display design features—pinched spouts and high pedestal bases—characteristic of Late Iron Age (seventh century B.C.) lamps in Judah. Discovered by the author in a storage closet near the cave of the Garden Tomb, the lamps may have been originally placed in the tomb during the Iron Age as funerary offerings, and removed in the Byzantine period when the tomb was cleared for reuse. Perhaps they were found in late 19th-century excavations conducted in front of the cave and then were placed in this closet.